Heroes or Zeros & Hill Bill Volume 2

Set aside the rhetoric and gung-ho'ism (and ho' is a good term) of those voices praising Chavez as some sort of anti-BushCo leftist speaking for the little people, the reality of the situation is something quite different.

Some "investigative" journalists praise Chavez for suggesting oil prices should drop to a reasonable $50 or $60 barrel price. Crude oil, adjusting for inflation, throughout the last century averaged $18-23 a barrel, so yes indeedy, $50-60 is "reasonable."

Greg Palast: "When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn't because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars."

Hmm, so Chavez angers the BushCo regimen because Hugo interferes with the Saudi "petro-dollars" which are reinvested in US treasury bills, propping up BushCo's $2 trillion increase in national debt?

Fact is, China and Japan buy the bulk of US treasury bills. In simple terms, if the US dollar plummets, US consumers will stop buying, and the exporting/manufacturing economies of China, Japan, S. Korea, etc. would crumble. Woe to all those heavily invested predominantly Anglo shareholders. (Last year China replaced the US as Japan's #1 trade partner, US holding that spot since WWII).

Since taking office Chavez has threatened a few times to shut off supplying oil to the US. An empty silly threat as he needs the US market, at least until Venezuela has sufficiently tied its economy to China's.

Currently, China cannot process the "liquid asphalt" oil which Venezuela is rich with (which must have a barrel price above $30 to make it worth recovering), and shipping distance is another profit eater, i.e. shipping to Gulf Coast versus shipping to China. At the moment neither China nor Venezuela have the refineries to process the heavier oil (US refineries). So, while China and Venezuela are signing hefty business accords it will be a few years, perhaps a decade, before either see the economic benefits of investing, building, or buying new pipelines, tankers, and refineries.

Also usually unmentioned is the OPEC cartel was wobbly, very wobbly in 1999 when Chavez came to power in Venezuela and it is Chavez who led OPEC and advocated higher price oil within the cartel, in order for Venezuela's heavy crude to be profitable. OPEC didn't oblige Hugo, BushCo's war did; handing Venezuela/Chavez the economic opportunity of a lifetime.

China and Venezuela need oil priced at $30-50+/barrel to make their mutual business deals profitable. In January this year China and Saudi signed 5 business accords. Two years ago, 2004, China became the Saudi kingdom's largest oil customer. Only a fool would think China and Saudi sharing rides on a golf cart is unimaginable.

China, Saudi, and Venezuela. Who the shit do you think gave Hugo ascendancy within OPEC? The House of Saud maybe? You don't really think those Anglo elites in Caracas have ceded 400 years of power and wealth to Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" do you? Puppet. The gains to the average Jose in Venezuela have been and will be minimal, but as with most revolutions Jose is buying hope.

Much the way America's deluded religious right buys into Bush bringing God and morality back. The way some buy into a democrat in 2008 bringing peace and prosperity back. Joe Clueless, oblivious to the fact that the US elite have never been Godly, moral, or peaceful, and prosperity has been for cronies, with nickel and dime social programs so Joe Mama's generation could produce a very docile ignorant underclass who pose no threat to the status quo.

Fact is, if Americans stopped their gluttonous pointless consumerism the global economy would be in deep trouble. Did you think Bush was kidding when he urged folks to go shopping? The corporatocracy doesn't want Americans to stop buying, not yet. However, we are headed toward the day when global fortunes depend little on the addiction of Joe Average squandering every dime he can get for junk he doesn't need. The day draws closer when Joe is replaced by billions of new consumers in other parts of the world. That's the drawback of capital = it must find new markets to exploit for more capital.

America's Joe Average is drawing his last breath, surrounded by television and the latest holiday plastic decorations, obsessed with the lives of celebrities and trying to float bad checks to buy lottery tickets. So dumbed down he thinks a foreign puppet's platitudes of "revolution for the poor" has meaning.

So dumb he'll buy it's "a clash of civilizations," that's the trendy term for the same old "threat" of an 'ism trying to get you Joe. It's bigger than "US hegemony" as all the global elite are in on this one. BushCo may be securing oil - but it's not for Joe Average's pointless spoiled existence.

So dumb he doesn't realize the enormous economic power he holds (for the moment), and if he does know he's too comfortable a coward to use it. Time running out and Joe Dummy trolls the net arguing over voting red, blue, or green.

It's simply and solely about the American elite abandoning Joe Stupid for new markets, where peons are ripe for consumer gluttony and false status of brand names, and all at much lower wages; willing to work longer for the same items on the shelf. It's the bottom line.

For several hundred years the global elite have moved in, used up, and moved out for greener pastures. Latin America, Africa, the North American continent. Leaving behind shitholes, landfills, ghettos, ghost towns, wastelands, and "tribal divisions" with a viable city or two for the pols and corporate headquarters as necessary. China's turn for massive "growth and development" is on the horizon. America's turn to be a "has been." Not a conspiracy per se – just business.

Think of it in business terms. There's been a corporate raid, a leveraged buyout. Joe Stupid was employed by America, Inc., which has been sold, and the new bosses don't need him, for anything.

To hell in a handbasket, but hey – good ol' boy Clinton gave the airheads and gasbags something new to fume on for a couple of days. Clinton telling it like it is – you know, how he came closer to killing OBL. That is if you believe OBL is/was alive and not a long-dead but useful name.

But do give Bush credit for capturing or killing OBL's #2 man, several times.

Did you notice some of the clips shown of Clinton, a striding, handsome, fit, trim, gracefully aging man with initiative who just wants to save the world, from AIDS? Dammit, they really are going to give us the Clintons again in the WH. I swear, the US smells more like a third world country every day; all this shit and sulfur and garbage in the halls of power. Must be why pols and pundits, journalists and anchorheads are wealthy – they're paid to spread that odor around.